Students Host Second Annual TEDx Event

This past Saturday, the TEDxPEA speakers—lower Maxine Park, lower Jeannie Eom, upper Adith Reddi, prep Anish Mudide, lower Zander Galli, prep Tony Cai and lower Hansi Zhu—took to the spotlight at The Bowld to share their thoughts on the various ways in which the concept of “shades” can be interpreted.Speakers take up to 18 minutes to speak about a topic, moment or idea that they find worth sharing. There are many different types of talks, but the central guide is that the speaker presents a well-informed idea that engages the audience. Senior Isabel Hou joined TEDxPEA as part of the Social Media/Publicity team to bring together and inspire diverse individuals. She recollects how the TEDxPEA team chose “shades” as a theme that is both relevant and open to interpretation. “We wanted students to think creatively, to think outside of the box and to take many different approaches to a deceptively simple idea of shades,” she said. Lower Thora Jordt, who edits footage for TEDxPEA’s Youtube channel, agreed. “We chose shades because we thought it could be interpreted in a large variety of ways, especially in ways that are relevant to today’s social and political climate,” she said.Lower Felix Zou spoke at TEDxPEA last year and helped with videotaping and editing this year. He also believed “shades” allowed for a diversity of thought and content. “We felt that it is specific enough to inspire interesting talks, but not too much so that it would limit people’s creativity,” he said. “To some it might encompass the spirit of inclusion at Exeter, to others it might mean something a bit more literal.”That possibility for a myriad of interpretations attracted Cai, who originally planned to speak his lower year. “Shades have many different meanings, including the hidden unknown of our daily life, which is closely related to my speech—raising people’s awareness in the hidden history of our daily life.” Zhu, on the other hand, spoke about the cultural controversy surrounding the upcoming live action Disney movie Mulan. The 1998 animated version, the only Disney film that stars an Eastern Asian character, was an integral part of her childhood. Zhu expressed appreciation for the community of speakers. “We were all whispering encouragement and congratulations in between talks, and I think there’s something beautiful about the way we all believed in each other so wholly,” she said. Park had grown up watching TED talks, but particularly remembered her friend’s mother’s, Dawn Averitt, who spoke about HIV in 2014. “The way she used TEDx as an opportunity to reach many people about an issue she cared about really inspired me,” she said. Park hoped that speaking on polarization in the context of technology and psychology would help the community to understand this global issue. “Exeter is a community of activists, which inevitably means we are a community of passionate disagreement. We are also a generation of avid technology enthusiasts. It’s really awesome that we are involved in issues that are important to us, but this also means we have to be extremely cognizant of how technology influences our communication and causes polarized disagreement,” she said.Mudide decided to apply to TEDxPEA to “share [his] voice, practice public speaking, and try something new.” His talk was centered around Harkness—a topic Exonians could easily relate to. Lower Keona Edwards came to support friends that were speaking, but left inspired by the talks. “I [had] more awareness of my actions,” she said.Meanwhile, lower Emma Chen appreciated the content of the talks, including “finding out where fortune cookies came from. I always wondered about that,” she said.Last year, as an audience member, Hou remembered the impressive quality of speeches that showed up again this year. “I was both humbled and inspired by my peers' speeches. This year, we rushed a bit—students had to craft and memorize their speeches within a pretty tight timeframe—so I'm really impressed by their work,” she said.Upper Zoe Barron, who was the graphic designer and MC for the event,  hoped that the night’s TEDx series reminded everyone that students, despite their youth, had valuable thoughts to share. “No matter how young you are, there are experiences to draw on in your life that can bring you to the bigger idea,” she said. “I hope students walked away from it remembering: my thoughts matter, and people do want to hear what I have to say.”